Hannah Neumann from Hey Bud Skincare

[Ad]: Are you sick of those fly by night fast talking performance agencies that are all talk and no action? They're promising roas you could only dream of and delivering nightmares. Look, I might be being dramatic, but I think we've all had that experience. Introducing add to Cart's performance advertising partner for 2024, Farsight. And that's Farsight with two eyes. F a R S I I G H T. Farsight are in it for the long term with a genuine focus on relationships. I know, shocking right? And as the saying goes, you are the company you keep and Farsight work with some of the most genuine and high growth businesses in Australia. I'm talking trademark Black Milk Nobby. If you want a performance agency who actually care and can deliver on their promises, make sure you check out the Farsight team at Farsight. That's Farsight with two I's F A R S I I G H T dot.

[Voiceover]: Welcome to the checkout. We catch up with previous add to cut guests and ask them five quick questions to get to know them better and leave you with a little extra inspiration to get through your Friday. Here's your host, Bushy.

[Ad]: Today's checkout features Hannah Newman, head of marketing at hey Bud. Hey Bud is a brand that delivers premium skincare products combining nature and Science. Started by three friends in 2019, the brand now has a global customer base in over 90 countries. Prior to HeyBud, Hannah was part of marketing teams at Styletread and L' Oreal before joining HeyBud in 2022. Hannah, welcome to the checkout. Thank you for joining us. We have learned a lot about hey Bud from its origin story with the three founders finding out that hemp is great to to solve teenage acne all the way through to your Taylor Swift moments this year. But we're here to learn a little bit more about you. Five questions. Number one, what's the weirdest thing that you've ever bought online?

[Voiceover]: Now this question is a long list. I am the marketer who's so susceptible to marketing I think at the moment. So in the last six, nine months I bought a house and I've been on quite a big holiday. So what I have bought off TEMU is very interesting. It gets me every time with the marketing but all of the weird and wonderful little gadgets for watching your phone on the plane, all of the homeware stuff from, you know, stick on lights and I've got a shower screen cleaner as well. So anything that TEMU is pumping out, you know, it's probably added to my Cart at some point and probably arriving at my house soon.

[Ad]: Now, how do you feel about that as a startup Australian brand in the data? Well, not dtc, you're Omnichannel now, but starting in the DTC space, obviously there's a lot of retailers out there that are worried about Temu and Shein and all the international competitors coming in. How do you balance that up in your head when you go, actually, no, it's actually, I'm using it my real life, but it is a real competitor to us.

[Voiceover]: Yeah. And you know what, I like to put on a bit of an attitude around, like, you know what, it's not worth worrying about it and spending time invested in the worry and the stress side of it. Actually, just think about why am I shopping there? Cool. I've been converted by an ad normally, is the answer here. And so actually trying to learn from my own behavior of why did I end up there, why did I check out in the end? Actually, like, again, they have such large scale that they're playing with in terms of people and obviously our products, et cetera, try and learn and understand what's working for them and actually just transfer it across to your own, whether it's business, product, etc. You can lose sleep over it if you want to, but that's actually not very productive use of anyone's time.

[Ad]: Yes. I love that approach in terms of not going, oh, it's a threat, it's horrible, it's going to, you know, it's bad for retail. I'm not going to shop there. It's actually, no, you should be bloody shopping there because you need to know the experience that hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Australians are having and that they're expecting from you now because they're changing the game. So great point number two. Which retailer has most inspired you recently?

[Voiceover]: I think when I think this space, there's actually quite a lot of brands that have been doing incredible things out there. One of the brand collabs that I'm on the edge of my seat for is Oritana July. So they're doing a collab Orton in the Australian market. This beautiful premium leather Aussie legacy brand. Personally a massive favorite of mine as well. She got a few of their products and then July is this kind of disruptor in the space, still kind of lifestyle adjacent. So we're talking handbags onto travel, but actually see what they come out together to serve both of those markets, which on paper may be quite different, but actually the same kind of lifestyle style customer as well, too. So I'm very excited to see what they do with that, but I think it'll probably end up in my card at some stage as well too. If the marketing's good, Ethan and Zoe

[Ad]: will be very happy with that. It's sad, isn't it? Because the most interesting part for me about the upcoming Olympics is the July luggage. And I'm like, God, you're such a nerd. Like before, I used to be excited about the actual Olympics. Now I'm excited about the. The luggage provider.

[Voiceover]: Yeah, the brand collabs I cannot wait for. I know there's a few good ones on the market already, but I think there's a few that are really holding off until that Olympics buzz kicks off in probably only, you know, end of July, couple of weeks now.

[Ad]: Not far off. Number three, name a piece of tech that you or your e commerce business couldn't live without.

[Voiceover]: Now, we spoke about this a little bit before. When I actually think tech, I think organization, that it's very, very core. So notion to me is my bible. So we use it as a team. I use it myself sometimes. I'm very organized. I have notion boards that I spend a lot of time building to make sure it suits what I need. And then I joke about the fact that I've got notion boards that are random scribbles from 3am when I roll over and go, right, this could be an idea. Let me write it down somewhere so I don't lose it. And kind of the way that you're able to actually kind of shape it into both there. I think organization tools like that are essential in a business and not maybe prescriptive in terms of everyone needs to use it the same way, but actually making sure that people are being organized as, as, you know, using tools like that along the way.

[Ad]: And I think the trick with them, from my experience anyway, is to keep it as simple as possible. Because a lot of the times you can go into a tool like notion and go, oh my God, you can do tables and they can do internal linking and do this. And I'm not going to do anything until I get all these set up correctly. And it's like, exactly like you said, it's like just use the basic functions first and then work it out from there.

[Voiceover]: And whatever you do, don't TikTok search notion hacks because you'll end up in a hole that you'll never come out of and think that you're notion whiz, but then actually try and execute them. And it takes A little bit longer than it really should.

[Ad]: I love that. Good tip number four. Can you recommend a book or a podcast that our listeners should immediately get into?

[Voiceover]: Yeah, I think classic one that I can't go past and everyone knows this one. This isn't profound, but obviously Diary CEO is on my list every week. It's one of the things I listen to on my commute. One of my absolute favorites, I think the variation of conversations. What he does incredibly well is tell a story with whoever he's got in front of him. He curates the conversation. He kind of pushes and pulls back where he needs to. So I think take that as both an information piece but actually really skill study the way that he creates story conversation and really captivates people towards the end. One that I'm absolutely loving at the moment as well too. Also out of the UK is Grace Beverly. So incredible kind of founder based out of the uk, quite young but really changing the tone of specifically as well VC funding for startups in the UK and challenging the kind of status quo as part of that as well. But incredible guests including Stephen Bartlett as well too on her podcast A especially if anyone's kind of interested more so in that beauty and lifestyle space.

[Ad]: That's a great tip. Thank you. I haven't heard of that one. We're going to check out Grace Beverly's podcast number five. What is your biggest challenge today?

[Voiceover]: I think coming back from a month of holiday and resetting the brain and kind of getting a bit of space to think we are in incredibly rare but amazing opportunity for hey bud. At the moment around we have a lot of things in front of us, we have a lot of choices, a lot of opportunities for growth and actually making sure that we're choosing the right one. It's not about we only have one thing that we have to play with and that's that has to work. We're in a space where we have to make sure that the next step that we take is the right one for growth in the business. Because there's a few options there that all of course are saying that they're the best, but actually making sure that it is the right step for us as the next stage I think is something that's consistently on my mind. Again, there's a couple of givens with hey Bud. Our products are great, our customers are amazing and kind of that community we've built is all there together and kind of firing. But actually the next steps I think is something that yeah, we're always thinking about and trying to figure out which one's the right one for us.

[Ad]: That's exciting.

[Voiceover]: Very exciting. Again, it's a rare space to be in for a smaller business, but we have built for four years the business, not only, obviously the founding team and then myself jumping in as well too. But yeah, there's a lot happening. It's just about trying to invest in the right space.

[Ad]: Love it. Hannah, thank you so much for joining us on the checkout.

[Voiceover]: Thank you.

[Ad]: To hear more from Hannah, jump back into Epis 435, where Hannah shares how hey Bud. Focus on creating comprehensive product pages that prioritize customers questions and their feedback. We also hear how. Hey Bud. Have blended science and fun to craft their very distinctive tone of voice. And we hear about their impressive track record in pursuing experimental activations. You swifties will definitely know what I'm talking about here.